In this second block of the MOOC we will ask the question: ‘what does it mean to be human within a digital culture, and what does that mean for education?’. We tend not to question, in our everyday lives, where the boundaries of ‘the human’ lie; but developments within digital technology, bioscience, philosophy, ecology and popular culture are increasingly pushing at those boundaries and making them seem less secure. Examples of such developments include:
biomedical developments in cloning, genetic and tissue engineering, transplantation and reproductive medicine
advances in artificial intelligence and the promise of seamless brain-computer interfaces
the increasingly mundane and unnoticed embeddedness of digital technology in our everyday lives
'posthumanist' and 'anti-humanist' philosophy which has challenged some of our often taken-for-granted assumptions about 'human nature' and the ways in which we define what it means to be human
movements which question the ecological sustainability of human-centred ways of thinking.
In all of these and more, we are seeing a constant flow of new challenges to our definitions of what is ‘essentially’ human. Not all these challenges, of course, are simply ‘digital’ - they are technological in the broadest sense. However, they do help us understand how digital re- workings of ‘humanity’ are positioned within a broader cultural context where the constitution and boundaries of the human are very much ‘up for grabs’ (Hayles, 1999, 84-5).
As Elaine Graham expresses it:
What is at stake, supremely, in the debate about the implications of digital, genetic, cybernetic and biomedical technologies is precisely what (and who) will define authoritative notions of normative, exemplary, desirable humanity into the twenty-first century. (Graham, 2002, 11)
Who or what, in your view, will define what it means to be human in the future? Who or what defines it now? These are crucial questions for those of us engaged in education in all its forms, because how we define ‘desirable humanity’ will inform at the deepest level our understanding of how and why education might be conducted and why it matters. Paying attention to online education foregrounds these issues in a new way, helping us look at them afresh.
In the two weeks to follow, we will approach the question of the human from two different perspectives. First, in week 3 we will look at examples of approaches which respond to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by technology byre-asserting the importance of what is (arguably) irreplaceably valuable in human ways of being and learning. Then, in week 4, we will look at perspectives which focus on how technology works to re-define what constitutes ‘the human’ - for better or worse - and what that might mean for education.
To help approach these ideas, we can simplify by saying that for our purposes there are broadly two ‘takes’ on the human and its relationship to the ‘posthuman’: our work in week 3 is mostly focused on the first of these, and in week 4 the emphasis is on the second.
1) First is the view that human nature and human ways of being are under threat by scientific and technological advances, and that this is dangerous for us because it undermines the basis of who we are and how we define an ethical and fair approach to living (there are a lot of connections between this view and the dystopian visions you have been looking at). For one example of a thinker who takes this view, you might read some of the extracts from Francis Fukuyama’s book Our Posthuman Future, or if you prefer, watch this video of Fukyama lecturing on his book’s thesis.
2) Second is the view that universal ‘human nature’ does not really exist - ‘the human’ is something that has been made, by history, by politics, by language, by our relations with technology. In other words, ‘the human’ and ‘human nature’ are social categories, not absolute truths. And as Cary Wolfe suggests, “if ‘the human’ is made...then it can be made not just differently but more justly—especially for those who, because of their gender, race, or other characteristics, have historically fallen outside the ruling paradigms of ‘the human’.” The lecture from Steve Fuller you'll be watching in week 3 throws some more light on this view.
So - two very different perspectives to inform us here: one that takes the notion of an essential ‘human nature’ as a guiding light for our collective futures; and another that questions the very existence of a universal ‘human nature’, while at the same time drawing our attention to the ways in which by defining ‘the human’ we also marginalise and exclude from view other ways of thinking about who we are.
References
Hayles, N. K. (1999) How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Graham, E. L. (2002). Representations of the post/human: monsters, aliens and others in popular culture. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
In addition to the content, look out for the following activities:
In week 3 we are running a competition! With prizes! Alongside engaging with this week’s tasks, we invite you to begin experimenting with visual ways of representing your understanding. This is not a compulsory part of the course, but it will be a good opportunity to practice the kind of skills you’ll be using in the final assessment. To take part, create an image that represents or illustrates any one of the themes you have come across in the course so far. This image can be created any way you like, using any tools - digital or otherwise - that you have access to. Be sure to check out our copyright guidelines and suggestions for using and creating images. **Find out more about the Week 3 Image Competition and how to take part.**
At the end of week 3, we’ll be broadcasting a Google Hangout, which will be available to view live on our Coursera announcements page, our Google Plus page, and YouTube. It will also be available afterwards as a recording on our YouTube channel. To watch the hangout live, go to the announcements page in Coursera at the following time: Friday 15th February at 17:00 GMT
You will also need to begin creating your digital artefact in week 4. This is the final assignment for the course, and you will submit it for peer assessment during week 5. Read more about the Digital Artefact here.
One response to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by contemporary theory and technological change is to try to focus on what it is that is most valuable, most precious, most essential about ‘being human’, and to use that idea as a way of re-grounding our practice, our ethics, our politics and our world-view. In this week we will look at various examples which take this broad stance.
So here in week 3, we are looking at examples of approaches which respond to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by technology by re-asserting the importance of what is (arguably) irreplaceably valuable in human ways of being and learning. Remember that here we are considering the view that human nature and human ways of being are in some sense under threat by technology, and that this has the potential to undermine the basis of our commitment to humanist ideas which underlie many educational philosophies and approaches to practice, such as equality, freedom and autonomy. There are other views on this, of course, and we will be covering some of them next week.
In addition to the content, look out for the following activities during week 3:
There's a Google Hangout, which will be available to view live on our Coursera announcements page, our Google Plus page, and YouTube. It will also be available afterwards as a recording on our YouTube channel. To watch the hangout live, go to the announcements page in Coursera at the following time: Friday 15th February at 17:00 GMT
This advertisement for the Toyota GT86 plays on some of the dystopic visions of our immersion in a pixellated simulation of reality which may be familiar from some of the previous clips you’ve looked at. Here, the reality and authenticity of human emotion is aligned with speed, control and a ‘breaking out’ of the artificial into the ‘natural’. (Note, however, that the means of breaking out is still entirely technological!) The opposition created here is between digital technology as ‘unreal’ and de-humanising, and the natural world as authentic and living; how does this opposition continue to be played out in popular discussions about technology-mediated education?
This advert takes on the theme of mediation and, again, the nature of ‘authentic’ human contact. What aspects of ‘the human’ do you see as being ‘re-asserted’ here? Can you link this clip with the notion of ‘the illusion of non-mediation’ referenced in the Kolowich article we are also looking at?
World builder is a short film which explores some of the same themes (simulation, immersion, artifice) as the Toyota advertisement, though in a slightly more nuanced way. What is your interpretation of this film? In what ways does it position ‘the human’ in relation to the technological? What does it say about ways in which human emotion can be manipulated by digital simulation?
This short film has a darkly comic grounding idea which we won’t spoil here! The vision of humanity it constructs is one which is rich but also slightly repellent - it works to make the notion of ‘the human’ seem strange. What conclusions might you draw from this about the human body, and whether we can see the body as providing a stable basis for defining what it means to be human? This is a theme we will return to in week 4.
In this lecture, Professor Steve Fuller (University of Warwick) takes us on a rapid ride through the history of how ‘humanity’ has been defined and made. By asking the question ‘have we always, sometimes or never been human?’, he draws our attention to the ways in which ‘humanity’ as a social category has been defined from ancient to medieval to modern times. ‘Let me tell you’, he says, ‘it is very difficult to define what it is to be human’. While you are watching this lecture, you might consider some of the following questions - these are also issues you should take up in your course discussions over the week.
Why does Professor Fuller say (almost as a joke) that education is ‘a dying art’?
He talks about the ‘modern artifice’ of enhancement: how might this notion of becoming more ‘fully human’ via enhancement impact on the project of education?
Professor Fuller argues that there’s historical precedent for considering only some homo sapiens to be ‘human’: what are the political implications of this in contemporary times? And how might such a notion position education?
He suggests that we are questioning the very existence of the ‘human’ because we have failed in the humanist project (for example, we are far from achieving racial, gender or class equality): do you believe this?
In claiming that ‘the old humanistic project should not be dropped’, Professor Fuller links his talk to our key theme of re-asserting the human. His stance seems to be that ‘you can only be morally credible’ if you are addressing issues of human freedom and equality. Thinking about education specifically, might we see MOOCs as an example of an ‘old humanistic project’, particularly in the promise they appear to offer for democratisation, equality of access and so on?
This chapter is the editor’s introduction to a collection of essays by thinkers on posthumanism. It gives a very useful overview of some of the philosophical and cultural bases for arriving at a position we might reasonably call ‘posthuman’. It is important to understand that ‘posthumanism’ is not simply another way of talking about cyborgs or other fantasies of human enhancement - it has a philosophical and critical inheritance which is far more to do with the question of how we define and value what it means to be human. In this sense, it is much more theoretically rich than the ‘transhumanism’ with which it is sometimes confused.
Unlike the other readings this week, Badmington’s text is not really about the ‘re-assertion’ of the human - rather it is about achieving a richer understanding of how the human and the posthuman relate to each other, and it provides a theoretical basis for our move into considerations of the posthuman next week. Use this reading to give some historical and critical perspective to the questions raised by the film festival, and by the historical overview of the ambiguity of ‘the human’ given by Steve Fuller.
Perspectives on education
Kolowich, S (2010) The Human Element. Inside Higher Edhttp://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/29/lms
This article attempts to make a case for the inclusion of more video and audio in online teaching, in order to increase the sense of presence and ‘human-touch’ for distance learners. Articles like this are standard fare in popular discussions of technology-mediated education. What happens if we look at it from a perspective informed by the readings we have been doing this week? If we accept that ‘humanity’ is an ambiguous category at best, where does that leave claims like the ones made here for ‘the human element’ as a touchstone for good course design? And why are video and audio constructed here as being ‘more human’ than, for example, text? What assumptions are at play here, and what do they say about the broader discourses which dominate discussions of technology and education?
Monke, L (2004) The Human Touch, EducationNexthttp://educationnext.org/thehumantouch/
Monke’s article is a plea for a re-thinking of education policy prioritising technological ‘literacy’ in schools from the earliest years of education. It is intriguing to read this in the context of some of the thinking we’ve been exploring in this and previous weeks. Here are some questions you might consider in reading and discussing this:
Monke relies on a set of principles defined by ‘human purpose and meaning’ which set ‘the human’ very much in opposition to the technological. Technology education should be driven by ‘human values’ rather than by the prerogatives of the technology - is this simply a re-working of the ‘technology should follow pedagogy’ mantra we have already discussed?
What kinds of divisions and oppositions does Monke set up between nature and technology? Between experience and mediation? Between ‘inner’ resources and external power? Between information and meaning? And what kind of perspective on ‘human nature’ does he rely on to maintain these divisions?
Does his vision of education count as one of Steve Fuller’s ‘old humanist projects’ - the kinds of projects we need to ensure our ‘moral credibility’? Or is it simply a luddite view which fails to ‘get’ the new ways of being human that technology makes possible?
We might find it quite easy to agree with his statement that young people should be helped to ‘think about, not just with, technology’, but do we need to depend on an oppositional relationship between the human and the technological to do this?
In this second block of the MOOC we will ask the question: ‘what does it mean to be human within a digital culture, and what does that mean for education?’. We tend not to question, in our everyday lives, where the boundaries of ‘the human’ lie; but developments within digital technology, bioscience, philosophy, ecology and popular culture are increasingly pushing at those boundaries and making them seem less secure. Examples of such developments include:
- biomedical developments in cloning, genetic and tissue engineering, transplantation and reproductive medicine
- advances in artificial intelligence and the promise of seamless brain-computer interfaces
- the increasingly mundane and unnoticed embeddedness of digital technology in our everyday lives
- 'posthumanist' and 'anti-humanist' philosophy which has challenged some of our often taken-for-granted assumptions about 'human nature' and the ways in which we define what it means to be human
- movements which question the ecological sustainability of human-centred ways of thinking.
In all of these and more, we are seeing a constant flow of new challenges to our definitions of what is ‘essentially’ human. Not all these challenges, of course, are simply ‘digital’ - they are technological in the broadest sense. However, they do help us understand how digital re- workings of ‘humanity’ are positioned within a broader cultural context where the constitution and boundaries of the human are very much ‘up for grabs’ (Hayles, 1999, 84-5).As Elaine Graham expresses it:
Who or what, in your view, will define what it means to be human in the future? Who or what defines it now? These are crucial questions for those of us engaged in education in all its forms, because how we define ‘desirable humanity’ will inform at the deepest level our understanding of how and why education might be conducted and why it matters. Paying attention to online education foregrounds these issues in a new way, helping us look at them afresh.
In the two weeks to follow, we will approach the question of the human from two different perspectives. First, in week 3 we will look at examples of approaches which respond to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by technology byre-asserting the importance of what is (arguably) irreplaceably valuable in human ways of being and learning. Then, in week 4, we will look at perspectives which focus on how technology works to re-define what constitutes ‘the human’ - for better or worse - and what that might mean for education.
To help approach these ideas, we can simplify by saying that for our purposes there are broadly two ‘takes’ on the human and its relationship to the ‘posthuman’: our work in week 3 is mostly focused on the first of these, and in week 4 the emphasis is on the second.
1) First is the view that human nature and human ways of being are under threat by scientific and technological advances, and that this is dangerous for us because it undermines the basis of who we are and how we define an ethical and fair approach to living (there are a lot of connections between this view and the dystopian visions you have been looking at). For one example of a thinker who takes this view, you might read some of the extracts from Francis Fukuyama’s book Our Posthuman Future, or if you prefer, watch this video of Fukyama lecturing on his book’s thesis.
2) Second is the view that universal ‘human nature’ does not really exist - ‘the human’ is something that has been made, by history, by politics, by language, by our relations with technology. In other words, ‘the human’ and ‘human nature’ are social categories, not absolute truths. And as Cary Wolfe suggests, “if ‘the human’ is made...then it can be made not just differently but more justly—especially for those who, because of their gender, race, or other characteristics, have historically fallen outside the ruling paradigms of ‘the human’.” The lecture from Steve Fuller you'll be watching in week 3 throws some more light on this view.
So - two very different perspectives to inform us here: one that takes the notion of an essential ‘human nature’ as a guiding light for our collective futures; and another that questions the very existence of a universal ‘human nature’, while at the same time drawing our attention to the ways in which by defining ‘the human’ we also marginalise and exclude from view other ways of thinking about who we are.
References
Hayles, N. K. (1999) How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Graham, E. L. (2002). Representations of the post/human: monsters, aliens and others in popular culture. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
In addition to the content, look out for the following activities:
**Find out more about the Week 3 Image Competition and how to take part.**
Friday 15th February at 17:00 GMT
One response to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by contemporary theory and technological change is to try to focus on what it is that is most valuable, most precious, most essential about ‘being human’, and to use that idea as a way of re-grounding our practice, our ethics, our politics and our world-view. In this week we will look at various examples which take this broad stance.
So here in week 3, we are looking at examples of approaches which respond to the apparent threat to ‘the human’ posed by technology by re-asserting the importance of what is (arguably) irreplaceably valuable in human ways of being and learning. Remember that here we are considering the view that human nature and human ways of being are in some sense under threat by technology, and that this has the potential to undermine the basis of our commitment to humanist ideas which underlie many educational philosophies and approaches to practice, such as equality, freedom and autonomy. There are other views on this, of course, and we will be covering some of them next week.
In addition to the content, look out for the following activities during week 3:
Friday 15th February at 17:00 GMT
Popular cultures
**Watch on YouTube**
**Watch on YouTube**
**Watch on YouTube**
**Watch on YouTube**
Ideas and interpretations
CoreHumanity 2.0: defining humanity - Steve Fuller’s TEDx Warwick talk (24:08),http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/podcasts/media/more/tedx?podcastItem=steve_fuller.mp4
View the presentation slides here
In this lecture, Professor Steve Fuller (University of Warwick) takes us on a rapid ride through the history of how ‘humanity’ has been defined and made. By asking the question ‘have we always, sometimes or never been human?’, he draws our attention to the ways in which ‘humanity’ as a social category has been defined from ancient to medieval to modern times. ‘Let me tell you’, he says, ‘it is very difficult to define what it is to be human’. While you are watching this lecture, you might consider some of the following questions - these are also issues you should take up in your course discussions over the week.
Advanced
Badmington, Neil (2000) Introduction: approaching posthumanism. Posthumanism. Houndmills; New York: Palgrave.http://www.palgrave.com/PDFs/0333765389.Pdf
This chapter is the editor’s introduction to a collection of essays by thinkers on posthumanism. It gives a very useful overview of some of the philosophical and cultural bases for arriving at a position we might reasonably call ‘posthuman’. It is important to understand that ‘posthumanism’ is not simply another way of talking about cyborgs or other fantasies of human enhancement - it has a philosophical and critical inheritance which is far more to do with the question of how we define and value what it means to be human. In this sense, it is much more theoretically rich than the ‘transhumanism’ with which it is sometimes confused.
Unlike the other readings this week, Badmington’s text is not really about the ‘re-assertion’ of the human - rather it is about achieving a richer understanding of how the human and the posthuman relate to each other, and it provides a theoretical basis for our move into considerations of the posthuman next week. Use this reading to give some historical and critical perspective to the questions raised by the film festival, and by the historical overview of the ambiguity of ‘the human’ given by Steve Fuller.
Perspectives on education
Kolowich, S (2010) The Human Element. Inside Higher Ed http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/29/lmsThis article attempts to make a case for the inclusion of more video and audio in online teaching, in order to increase the sense of presence and ‘human-touch’ for distance learners. Articles like this are standard fare in popular discussions of technology-mediated education. What happens if we look at it from a perspective informed by the readings we have been doing this week? If we accept that ‘humanity’ is an ambiguous category at best, where does that leave claims like the ones made here for ‘the human element’ as a touchstone for good course design? And why are video and audio constructed here as being ‘more human’ than, for example, text? What assumptions are at play here, and what do they say about the broader discourses which dominate discussions of technology and education?
Monke, L (2004) The Human Touch, EducationNext http://educationnext.org/thehumantouch/
Monke’s article is a plea for a re-thinking of education policy prioritising technological ‘literacy’ in schools from the earliest years of education. It is intriguing to read this in the context of some of the thinking we’ve been exploring in this and previous weeks. Here are some questions you might consider in reading and discussing this: